Xerox Versant 3100 vs 1000i

[AP90]

Hey guys, so xerox sent us a proposition today. We currently have a 1000i. We produce a lot of booklets, and were looking at adding a plockmatic to the end of our 1000i. It is ungodly expensive it seems like to do this. So we have looked at going offline with a duplo. This is an option that I am leaning towards. BUT, Xerox has came back with a proposal to put in a new Versant 3100 loaded up with all the new finishings on it. With the new machine and lease write off, were coming in at just under what our current lease is at. Its a pretty tempting offer, as the samples from the press are excellent. What I'm worried about is overusing the 3100. We currently do about 180-200k clicks a month on our 1000i. If we can automate our finishing, we can up that to 230-240k/month with what we outsource currently.

So my main question is not about if we should go offline vs online. Theres big benefits of both. What Im worried about is overusing the machine. Ive spoken with both Xerox techs that we currently see for our 1000i, and they don't think there would be a problem volume wise, even if we continue to grow. They seem to think about 400-500k would be pushing the limits of the machine, so essentially double of what we do. I don't think they're just blowing smoke, cause they don't want to constantly be repairing the machine. So thats where we are. Would like some input. Also, it seems like were still paying a huge amount for the 3100 on our lease payment if we go that way, which I won't really discuss much.

Thanks guys!

 

[PricelineNegotiator]

I may not be the most educated about this decision, but I think offline for booklets is incredibly attractive and the 3100 should print at about the same speed and quality as the 1000i, with faster file processing and newer printing technology.

 

[MailGuru]

Hey AP90. We have (2) 2100's and are averaging about 300k clicks per month on each, so, the 3100's should handle your volume. We went the other way. Had offline booklet making on the (2) Duplo's, and brought that process inline with the 2100's. No problem. However, even though we displaced the hand collate/hand feed manual labor (a large cost) the staples (staple cartridges) on the 2100's are more expensive than the 25-gauge wire spools on the Duplos, so, just keep an eye on your bottom line cost to produce.

 

[kdw75]

Hey guys, so xerox sent us a proposition today. We currently have a 1000i. We produce a lot of booklets, and were looking at adding a plockmatic to the end of our 1000i. It is ungodly expensive it seems like to do this. So we have looked at going offline with a duplo. This is an option that I am leaning towards. BUT, Xerox has came back with a proposal to put in a new Versant 3100 loaded up with all the new finishings on it. With the new machine and lease write off, were coming in at just under what our current lease is at. Its a pretty tempting offer, as the samples from the press are excellent. What I'm worried about is overusing the 3100. We currently do about 180-200k clicks a month on our 1000i. If we can automate our finishing, we can up that to 230-240k/month with what we outsource currently.

So my main question is not about if we should go offline vs online. Theres big benefits of both. What Im worried about is overusing the machine. Ive spoken with both Xerox techs that we currently see for our 1000i, and they don't think there would be a problem volume wise, even if we continue to grow. They seem to think about 400-500k would be pushing the limits of the machine, so essentially double of what we do. I don't think they're just blowing smoke, cause they don't want to constantly be repairing the machine. So thats where we are. Would like some input. Also, it seems like were still paying a huge amount for the 3100 on our lease payment if we go that way, which I won't really discuss much.

Thanks guys!

I agree with your techs. You will be seeing them more often, but you will be making more money. Better to overuse a machine than to under use to big of a machine. With the standard booklet maker our 2100 lease isn't too much less than $4k/mo. We were told the 1000 would have been over $5k/mo!!! All this was in 2014 mind you. Considering our C75 setup exactly the same was less than half that, the 2100 seemed overpriced, but since we run lots of heavy gloss covers it runs about 4 times as fast as our C75.

 

[pippip]

Do the 2100/3100/1000i suffer from any sort of slowdown between weights when printing booklets? Sometimes we do black print only on the inside with colour covers on our V80 and it takes forever. If they do, might be something to consider with your sort of volumes before deciding on offline v online.

 

[AP90]

Thanks for the input guys! I think it’s going to come down to time in the end. I have a feeling the 3100 is going to be slow when making square fold full bleed booklets. Maybe not, but I get that feeling.

But, will that time be worth it vs. trimming on the cutter and then finishing offline with a duplo system. I honestly just really like the idea of grabbing a completely finished booklet at the end of the machine.

Lastly, what I was really hoping for was these new finishers being compatable with my 1000i. The current booklet maker can only handle 10 sheets of 80# gloss text, which isn’t enough for a lot of our applications. The 3100’s can handle 25 sheets. Xerox can’t just make things simple for us can they!

 

[pippip]

Just following up on my previous comment about the V80 doing booklets, I'm running a 12page booklet this morning, full colour throughout with 300gsm card cover and 170gsm inside, all silk and its taking about 60secs per booklet. The pauses in between stocks is killing me. Without the finishing the print run time would be about 12mins for the entire job.

Lovely to have them coming off the end of the machine ready for trimming, only a short run of 70 booklets.
If it was any larger a run I'd have to do the finishing offline, just wouldn't be enough hours in the day to get the rest of the jobs done.

Not sure how this compared with 3100

 

[AP90]

Just following up on my previous comment about the V80 doing booklets, I'm running a 12page booklet this morning, full colour throughout with 300gsm card cover and 170gsm inside, all silk and its taking about 60secs per booklet. The pauses in between stocks is killing me. Without the finishing the print run time would be about 12mins for the entire job.

Lovely to have them coming off the end of the machine ready for trimming, only a short run of 70 booklets.
If it was any larger a run I'd have to do the finishing offline, just wouldn't be enough hours in the day to get the rest of the jobs done.

Not sure how this compared with 3100

Yeah that is ridiculously long for a 12 page booklet. We don't really experience slow downs on our 1000i. If the paper is drastically different as you are printing, it will do some adjustments between the different sheets, but nothing like that. I've talked with a few people about the 2100 and they said it does mixed media well. Our 1000i had a slight slow down problem with mixed color and B&W but once they gave us an NVM code for it we were off and running at full speed. But that will be another problem. I think I might end up making a trip up to Chicago to see what the machine is capable of and run some time test on them.

 

[Milo Wilson]

Is this going back on Xerox service? I think offline finishing is the best way to go. Whether you stay with the 1000i or get a versant you wouldn't want to tie up your machine with one booklet job.

 

[Lorenzo lab guy]

One additional consideration is the lifespan of the equipment. One of our Duplo machines has been in use while we have gone through three Xerox presses. When we replace a Xerox machine we are also replacing the inline finishing equipment. So the inline equipment get "purchased" much more frequently than our offline equipment.

 

[Craig]

We have the Morgana BM 500 bookletmaker, I would never go back to inline. We have 4 machines feeding a single bookletmaker and it is typically faster than the printer. For full bleed, we simply do a head and foot trim and run 11x18 sheets and let the BM do the face trim.
Don't forget you will loose the 5th color is you use it. I also find the 1000 registration to be nearly flawless. Not sure how the 3100 registers front to back.

 

[AP90]

Hey guys, just an update. Demo’d a 3100 and found it to be a really nice machine. The speed at which it was able to run full bleed trimmed booklets in line is amazing. It really is a great machine in that aspect. The quality is great and less glossy than our 1000i. After Xerox sent the numbers back we decided to go ahead and swap the 3100 for our 1000i. Really there are no benefits for having the 1000i over the 3100 for us so it was pretty much a no brained. Plus, one of the 1000i trainee techs recently retired and so I think they were really wanting us to switch won’t the deal they made us. We’re the only 1000 in a 2 hour radius so I feel they were wanting it out of the field. And now we also gain more trained techs in our area for the 3100 vs the 1000.

Another reason we went with the 3100 was that we’re still in the same position financially after doing the deal PLUS we can now do fully automated full bleed square back booklets with 0 operator intervention. And if we end up adding more machines down the line, we can go offline and won’t have wasted any money with the 3100 vs if we kept the 1000 now and went offline.

So cant wait until the first of December when the new machine is installed!

 

[MailGuru]

Congrats AP90! I'm sure you'll like the 3100! Which RIP did you get with it?

 

[AP90]

Congrats AP90! I'm sure you'll like the 3100! Which RIP did you get with it?

We ended up going with the Fiery EX-P "Hyper-Rip".

Side note that you might be interested in MailGuru. The 3100 with the new finishing devices uses a different staple cartridge. Product number is 8R12941 and they are considerably cheaper than the other cartridges and you buy staple refills, not the whole cartridge. That alone will save us almost a couple hundred a month. Also, this is such an old cartridge and universal one that there are 3rd party. Xerox says in their leases that you "can't" use them, but I'm at least going to give them a go and see if they work. I believe they are about $25 for a 3 pack/15000 staples. Xerox OEM ones are in the $80 range.

 

[MailGuru]

Cool, Thanks! That Hyper Rip is some kind of fast! You'll like it.

 

[kdw75]

Hey guys, just an update. Demo’d a 3100 and found it to be a really nice machine. The speed at which it was able to run full bleed trimmed booklets in line is amazing. It really is a great machine in that aspect. The quality is great and less glossy than our 1000i. After Xerox sent the numbers back we decided to go ahead and swap the 3100 for our 1000i. Really there are no benefits for having the 1000i over the 3100 for us so it was pretty much a no brained. Plus, one of the 1000i trainee techs recently retired and so I think they were really wanting us to switch won’t the deal they made us. We’re the only 1000 in a 2 hour radius so I feel they were wanting it out of the field. And now we also gain more trained techs in our area for the 3100 vs the 1000.

Another reason we went with the 3100 was that we’re still in the same position financially after doing the deal PLUS we can now do fully automated full bleed square back booklets with 0 operator intervention. And if we end up adding more machines down the line, we can go offline and won’t have wasted any money with the 3100 vs if we kept the 1000 now and went offline.

So cant wait until the first of December when the new machine is installed!

I am more and more convinced that they will be replacing the 1000i with the Iridesse.

 

[PricelineNegotiator]

Kind of crazy that the hyper RIP has two xeon processors, while the standard RIPs only have 4th gen i5's. I think the xeon processors are 4th gen as well, but with windows 10 and the 8th generation of Intel chips out, I'm kind of miffed at the slow adoption of technology by EFI, even though the RIP is tens of thousands of dollars. A four year gap is HUGE in terms of computing.

 

[namelessentity]

Kind of crazy that the hyper RIP has two xeon processors, while the standard RIPs only have 4th gen i5's. I think the xeon processors are 4th gen as well, but with windows 10 and the 8th generation of Intel chips out, I'm kind of miffed at the slow adoption of technology by EFI, even though the RIP is tens of thousands of dollars. A four year gap is HUGE in terms of computing.

Weird, you got me curious and my Prisma controller on our 1 year old Imagepress 10000 is only an i7 4770S, a processor from effing 2013... you'd think these controllers would have processors from the same year you bought them.

 

[PricelineNegotiator]

Weird, you got me curious and my Prisma controller on our 1 year old Imagepress 10000 is only an i7 4770S, a processor from effing 2013... you'd think these controllers would have processors from the same year you bought them.

That is basically what is in the standard RIPs for the Versant 180 and the 3100. The only justification I can see is stability on EFI's code end, where the developers choose a big processor, and write the code for the machine over the course of 3-5 years. Unfortunately computers can be finicky, so they might not be able to hot-swap the processors in the RIPs without causing a major code trainwreck. Food for thought, but I highly doubt it.